The law as the principle of blessing; the touchstone of the heart in Christ's rejection

The Lord afterwards gives the substance of the whole law, as
the principle of blessing between the creature and God, and that
which formed the touchstone for the heart in the rejection of
Christ. I say for the heart, because the trial was really there,
although it was in the understanding that it appeared. Even when
there were really orthodox principles (Christ being rejected), the
heart that was not attached to His Person could not follow Him in
the path to which His rejection led. The system of God's counsels
which depended on that rejection was a difficulty. Those who were
attached to His Person followed Him, and found themselves in it,
without having well understood it beforehand. Thus the Lord gives
the pith of the law -- the whole law as essentially divine
instruction -- and the point at which the counsels of God are
transplanted into the new scene, where they will be fulfilled
apart from the wickedness or ill will of man. So that in these few
verses (Mark 12: 28-37) the law and the Son of David are
presented, and the latter taking His place as Son of man -- the
Lord -- at the right hand of God. This was the secret of all that
was going on. The union of His body, the assembly, with Himself
was all that remained behind. Only in Mark the Prophet recognises
the moral condition, under the law, that tends towards entrance
into the kingdom (v. 34). This scribe had the spirit of
understanding.

True and false devotion

The picture of the condition that would bring in judgment,
which we find in Matthew 23, is not given here (see Synopsis about
Matt. 23). It was not His subject. Jesus, still as the Prophet;
warns His disciples morally; but the judgment of Israel, for
rejecting the Son of David, is not here before His eyes in the
same manner (that is to say, it is not the subject of which the
Holy Ghost is here speaking). The real character of the scribes'
devoutness is pointed out, and the disciples are warned against
them. The Lord makes them feel also what it is that, in the eyes
of God, gives true value to the offerings that were brought to the
temple.